


they can't all be ballads, julian

by stott183



Category: Runaways (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Gert Yorkes Playing Guitar, Gert Yorkes Singing, canon divergence at the end of s1, chase stein tries his best, gratuitous mentions of the author's music taste, idk how to tag but pls read this, they're not pining but they're not Not pining, we're talking about our Feelings and our Pasts today kids!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 04:37:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17481317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stott183/pseuds/stott183
Summary: chase can't get her meds, but he can buy her a guitar. gert can't express how much this gift means, but she can sing him sad songs.orEVERYBODY'S TALKING ABOUT THEIR FEELINGS, my 'fix it by making it never happen' s2 fic





	they can't all be ballads, julian

**Author's Note:**

> title from Kimya Dawson's Singing Machine, bc, as ariela says, 'the Yorkes love Kimya Dawson!!!!'
> 
> (also i mentioned Sid in this fic weeks before ariela's playlist dropped bc i love it so much go listen to the tenth's whole ep 'Boys We Don't Know' and their debut album 'Dunes' coming Feb 10th!!)

This stolen van had a Kimya Dawson burned CD and it’s not that the rest of them want to murder Gert. It's just that she has been playing it every time she drives, and Molly has rolled her eyes 33 times in 48 hours. It's a look that means “we GET IT already”, and they do all get it.  


This stolen, white creeper van has a Kimya Dawson CD, a Bach CD, 3 mixes with women’s names on them (Karen, Lisa, and Stacia) that turned out to be mostly 80s and 90s alternative music — Alex had taken to blasting ‘Buddy Holly’ by Weezer to wake them up — and a cassette that contained some Bing Crosby album about traveling. So, when Gert was driving, it was Kimya Dawson or bust. And Chase, who was sleeping in the passenger seat until 2 ½ minutes ago, does not think much of this. It’s just Gert’s way of coping, and of focusing. Can’t knock her for having methods. He’s never really heard this one before is all, and it’s clearly something Gert likes, something she knows all the words to. He used to be so in-tune with the music Gert listened to, and now- it’s just weird. Is all. Anyway. It’s a fine album to never listen closely to. Except now he’s paying attention.  


Because today, they hit a song about a woman running away from abuse. He’s going to be honest, he is never listening to the lyrics, he is just glad for the background noise to sleep by. But he woke up as the song was changing and didn’t want to move and his brain just kind of honed in on the music this time. This song is shaking him for obvious reasons. The song rattles low and slow about ‘running from the one who gave her life’ and ‘from the man who called her wife’. He sees flashes of his parents at that last battle, of his sick father, of the first bruise he remembered on his mother, when he was 6 and she had told him not to worry. This woman is speaking to him, more than singing, and it hits something raw in him. Like it’s saying ‘I see the bruise and it will heal.’ He’s not gonna cry but it’s a damn close thing.  


Very technically, Chase should not be up here. Alex has asked, insensitively, that no one who, quote “is boning, has boned, or wants to bone” sit with each other up front, because he thinks the sexual tension will drive their exhausted, trauma stricken group over the edge. He is arguably right. (Chase does not know who Alex is talking to but he definitely knows about the dance. Chase thinks someone told Molly, too.) Anyway, he should not be up here with Gert. She is white-knuckle gripping the steering wheel while pushing into northern California. He pretended to be asleep when they switched at the last rest stop because her presence calms him and no one but him likes sleeping up front. Chase sleeps with his limbs touching, when possible, curled into a tiny ball, and the front seat is a good excuse for that. But now, an hour of drifting naps later, he is stiff and bored. He shifts, opens his eyes, makes as much subtle noise as possible so Gert knows he’s awake.  


  
  
  


Gert is humming along to the song, face forward, shoulders tight, stomach a roiling boil of fear and anxiety. She is hyper aware of the van around her. Glance in the rear view child mirror for a head count, Molly, Karo, Nico, Alex. Saw Lace out the window about 20 miles ago, and she can feel her, but they should still slow down at nightfall and check on her. Chase, asleep in the passenger's seat, until he isn’t. Gert is actually listening to the lyrics of this song for the first time in a while and hearing them through Chase’s ears makes her stomach ping uncomfortably. Karolina had told them all about the gun after it happened and some gentle probing at Chase had confirmed the stomach-churning truth about Victor Stein and his volatile genius. This was likely insensitive. 

“Shit man, do you want me to change the song?” Futile attempt at this point, song winding down. Chase just woke up, probably didn’t even hear it. Gert can’t stop thinking, can’t get a full thought into her head and-  


“No it’s fine she, that was, she’s really good, I think. That felt real. Like she knows.” Chase has his brow furrowed, Chase is wearing a too small t-shirt they bought for Alex that says WORLD’S OKAYEST GAMER on the front in green letters. It stretches tight over his chest and shoulders and Gert is definitely okay, Alex was definitely wrong about separating them. Totally.  


“Oh. I’m glad. I really love her because of that same idea, actually. She doesn’t pull punches.” 

Gert wishes she had a mix to show him. She wishes she had Mitski and Phoebe Bridgers and Neko Case, wishes she could pull up her Bandcamp and show him the local bands she had gotten into, in the last two years. They are all she has to show about how she coped after they all split, punk shows to help her sweat off all her anger. Wants to tell him everything and is itching to get her hands on a guitar. Or a piano, even Molly’s ukulele would be a blessing at this point. She has the CD on shuffle, so Singing Machine has come up after Moving On, instead of before like on the album, and Gert wants to crank it. Wants to crank it and roll down the windows and annoy her friends, like this is a regular road trip and not a terrifying race against their fucking parents. 

“I love this one, actually. When I heard it the first time I didn’t know John Lennon had a son so I thought I had Mandela Effect-ed myself about his name.” She chuckles awkwardly.  


  
  
  


Gert is spinning at a million miles a minute, Chase can tell, because she talks with her face. Even to herself. Her eyebrows move, expression changes, when she’s not driving she gestures. It’s like watching a two person conversation happen in one head. This song is good, like the last one, now that he is listening properly. He definitely didn’t know John Lennon had a son, but he just nods when she says that. Around the first chorus, her self-conversation appears to end, and a moment of smooth falls over her face, a prolonged blink, and then. Oh, and then. She starts singing along. Not loudly, but as he watches she loosens her shoulders and the lyrics flow out of her in perfect unison, through voice catching and cracking, the familiarity clear. She sounds beautiful and sad, even though the content of this song is not inherently sad. She also sounds like she’s holding back, like if she was alone this might have been a performance song, a yelling song, even though that was not the actual musical vibe either. Gert is singing a fast portion of the song, some long list of men Chase does not know. She is running out of breath, trailing off, and-  


On cue, as if rehearsed, Molly- who has somehow crawled silently up behind them, sings “they can’t all be ballads, Julien” in fake, deep bass. They startle, and Gert laughs loud and sharp in the silence of the van, and the spell is broken. The Yorkes’ begin to harmonize in little fake voices, riffing off each other, song forgotten.  


Chase is so enthralled when Gert starts doing these little runs, distracted by her voice, that he says “Damn,” in this little reverent tone. Gert blushes. Molly snorts.  


“What’s up Chase? Don’t you like our Von Trapp impersonation? The Yorkes’ sisters, taking the world by storm!” Molly is more than a little punch drunk, running of what can’t be more than 3 hours of sleep and one moment of normalcy in a van full of runaway superpowered kids.  


“No, I was just mad you were holding out on us. We should make you guys perform in the street for money! Or we all could, the world’s most fuc- messed up Von Trapp Family Singers.”  


“You can swear around me, asshole. Don’t let Gertie tell you you can’t. Also, no offense, but that would be both gross and dumb. Nico and Karolina would just stare at each other, Alex can’t harmonize, and Gert would get noticed if she sang, her voice is too good.” 

Chase turns toward Gert and when she flicks her eyes off the road he mouths ‘Gertie’ with a massive, shit eating grin. She takes one hand off the wheel to flip him off. He is basking in this moment, golden in the early evening warmth, and then he remembers. He’s been so stupid.  


“Fucking shit, I can’t believe I did that! Goddamnit!” Gert starts when Chase begins to rummage around the glove compartment and pull out the paper map the previous owner had left there. “Molly, wake Alex up. Gert, can you turn around at the next rest stop?”  


“If you tell me why, you’re kind of freaking us out over here.” He looks at the Yorkes and yeah, Molly is looking at him like he grew a second head. He takes a deep breath.  


“We’re gonna go back to LA. I have a place and a plan, but I need Alex, Molls, please.”  


  
  
  


It takes them 29 hours with minimal stops to get back into LA, and another 3 to get where Chase is headed. He told them about the sunken mansion, about telling his parents he was going out and his friends he was staying in. Gert tracks the route there and notices that from his house, getting up to the Topanga State Park took him right past the Yorkes’. She doesn’t mention, but some little ball of hope in her grows.  


  
  


The place he takes them to is something that, by all accounts, should not exist. There should be no development in the woods of Topanga. There should certainly not be a 21st century residential home pushing itself out from the cliff face, like the gaping maw of capitalism emerging from natural elements. It had electricity, for fucks sake. Chase had hooked it up for himself through the power lines that ran past this part of the woods on the way to a maintenance shed. Gert hears that and thinks, begrudgingly, that that might be one of the hottest things she’s ever heard. There will be time to deal with her competency kink later.  


They are standing in what appears to be a foyer of an old, incredible mansion. The floors are stone, there is a staircase leading to the upper level, like a grand entrance. There are clearly rooms up there, and one of the doors here is propped open to reveal a kitchen, dusty but huge. It is clear that this was not Chase’s concern, however. The foyer appears to be the only room he used. There are a couple old mattresses and a pile of blankets in front of an old TV and pile of VHS tapes. Wrappers and food that didn’t require refrigeration sat next to it. Grape soda and beef jerky, mostly. It looked like a squatters camp. It all looked a little precarious.  


“There is no goddamn way this thing isn’t collapsing on us, Stein.” Alex was skeptical, to say the least. The kids were all hostile, snapping like turtles. Everyone was drawn tight around themselves, and Chase looked more earnest than he had in his entire life.  


“Listen, I don’t think it will. I have spent 72 straight hours in here and nothing has gone out on me. Nothing has fallen since last winter. I haven’t even been electrocuted in a few months!”  


“Several disturbing details aside, you are not 6 people. Your rig up is designed for yourself. This is a health hazard for large groups and its in the MIDDLE OF A NATIONAL PARK! We’re going to die, or get caught by rangers, or freeze, or get mauled, or I don’t know CAUGHT by RANGERS?!” Alex is breathing hard, and a dam is broken. Molly starts to giggle. Then Nico, then Karolina. Gert is trying to hide it behind her hand, and Chase is starting to grin. Alex, cheeks red and fists clenched, relaxes. Chuckles. “Hey, fuck you guys. Those were good points.”  


“They’re great points, Alex, but we are currently deep in the woods with a dinosaur on the prowl in the dead of night. I think we have to stay in Chase’s weird bachelor pad for tonight. We’ll talk about the rangers in the morning.” Nico dismisses them effectively with that, and Chase moves a tarp to reveal a second pile of blankets he appears to have used like a nest. They push all of the blankets and padding into a large heap and sleep curled up together like that, even after he offers to show them the rooms he’s uncovered, because though they won’t admit it, they can’t sleep without the others much anymore. Even Alex, who somehow ends up in the middle, tackled by Molly and next to Karolina, only grumbles for a second.  


  
  


It is quickly decided that they will stay in the building until further notice. As much as he protests, Alex is intrigued by the prospect of fixing the place up, and everything Chase has already done. There is electricity, a small, old VCR and TV, complete with the weirdest collection of Disney sequels and B-List Tom Hanks movies.  


Molly was ecstatic. “No way, Chase, why do you have a special edition of The ‘Burbs?” Chase is not going to admit this right now, but he had it, and The Bonfire of Vanities because of the Yorkes. Dale and Stacey had been convinced that early 90s Tom Hanks movies were masterpieces in disguise, and the kids had watched them on Gert’s turn for movie night. There had been enough social commentary in them that Gert had ranted and raved about suburbia and complacency and social norms being restrictive and counterintuitive to cultural growth. It wasn’t the first issue she had ever taken to heart, that had been animal cruelty in elementary school, but it was enthralling to watch her, 13 and red in the face, heartily convinced she had made a point. Until, that is, Alex pointed out that everything she claimed to hate was multiplied tenfold in Brentwood. Gert had almost gotten the Yorkes to move away.  


Chase is remembering this, young Gert with brown, straight hair hanging in her face, when actual real-time Gert snaps her fingers in his face.  


“Earth to Chase, where’d you go? You promised us a tour, come back.” He goes hot all over, embarrassed at the probably idiotic expression on his face. Karolina was snickering behind her hand, and Molly looked like a cat that ate the canary. Chase groans, rubs a hand over his face. Puts on his douchey-est face, and opens an imaginary door.  


“Alright, MTV. Welcome to my Crib.” Nico snorts, and that’s showtime. He shows them the bedrooms, of which there are enough to have their own. The kitchen, which he thinks with Alex’s help he can get functioning. The bathrooms, which are ornate but currently lacking running water. It’s all beautiful decor, and he can see that this is working out. He finally feels like he did something right by this group. He beams all day.  


  
  


A week, a lot of cleaning and fixing (and somehow working out a way to get running water in this place), and squabbling with Alex about what they can and cannot steal from park rangers electricity budget, and they are reasonably settled. Chase’s beef jerky and room temp soda didn’t last as long as they wanted, but Alex’s mystery cash has been more than enough so far. They decided on going into town every 4 to 7 days, avoiding pattern as best as possible. There were 3 grocery stores that they staked out and decided to go to as randomly as possible. This specific made Nico slightly testy, because only one had the ‘good barbeque chips’ and she ‘was never going to know how to ration them’. But group safety overtook saturated fat, and the plan was settled. They prioritize a few things, first run out. A thrift store. And the laundromat. And grocery shopping. That means splitting up, and more time. It’s Chase and Nico and Alex who go, just by luck of the draw. Because Chase rigged the draw. He needed Gert to stay in the house so he could do the thing he had been planning. Namely, blow his third of the ‘personal/no questions asked unless it’s a weapon’ budget on a guitar and sheet music.  


Gert had mentioned playing guitar exactly once, very early in their first day at the Hostel, as they had taken to calling it. (Karolina said it ‘makes it feel like a vacation. Like we’re roughing it for fun.’) However, she had taken to drumming her hands on countertops and moving her fingers in patterns he kind of recognized as chords. She also sang, nearly constantly, like a nervous tic. Humming and singing and dancing, especially when she thought no one was looking at her. They weren’t alone much, the rooms still being uncovered and the collaborative nature of trying to fix up the house meant they stepped on each other’s toes pretty often, but they all did exploring. Gert wandered through the decrepit hallways a lot. Chase already knew his way around pretty well, and would visit some of his favorite unused bedrooms just to sit and map out his next move. As such, he heard Gert singing quite a bit. Her voice floated, disembodied, through hallways. She skidded and jerked and swung her hips past his open doorways, too caught up to notice him watch. Once, she waltzed past him with an invisible partner and it took a mountain of self restraint not to ask her to cut in.  


So, the guitar. He had talked Alex into a record/cd/cassette player last time they had been out, on the way to the Hostel, and a bunch of music that he and Alex and Molly could agree on, a little from the pawn shop and a little from the Walmart. They had set it up and it had, pretty quickly, become Gert’s record player that the rest of them could use sometimes. She was in love, blasted anything they brought home. Chase thought if he couldn’t get her meds, or a therapist, or her parents back, he could get her a guitar. And maybe some sheet music that Molly had mentioned that Gert had mentioned that ‘might be in this one shop in this one neighborhood’? From Molly’s scattered account, Gert had gotten pretty deep into local, live music while they were gone. She also listened to a lot of women, a lot of loud and sad music. Molly says that Kimya Dawson was ‘like one end of the spectrum’. Then, because Chase had been minorly grilling her for several minutes, Molly had left without going into more detail.  


The guitar was a cheapy acoustic thing, dark rich brown and out of tune. The guy at the shop could tune it and get Chase set up for an extra 15 bucks, including a mid-level learners book and three songs of sheet music. Apparently there was a deal going on. Chase sees this deal as a blessing from some higher power of money and love. Guitar firmly in its new case, lesson book for middle level players in hand, a couple songs Chase sort of recognized and, somehow, blessing on earth, a Mitski song called A Burning Hill in hand, Chase left the music store to get to the rendezvous point. As he was leaving the store, he noticed a jar full of picks. On top, glinting in fluorescent lighting, was a purple and green marbled pick. He picked it up and turned back to the man behind the counter. He was an older guy, sort of weathered looking and serious. He had been all business during Chase’s time at the shop.  


“How much for this?” He holds the pick out and sets the guitar down to take his wallet back out.  


“On the house, my man. Hope this impresses the girl as much as you think it will.” Serious Musician cracks a knowing smile.  


“Oh no really, I can pay for it, it’s fine.” Chase is digging for bills, still reflexively against handouts.  


“Chill, buddy. Take the pick and say thank you. You look like you’re gonna be sick.” The old guy is smirking. Chase is, in fact, going to be sick.  


“Yeah, okay. Thank you. For all of your help.” Old guy has something in his eyes like he knows a great secret Chase didn’t. Chase should probably beat it. He slips the pick in his pocket.  


“I’ve been in tight spots before. Just want to pass along some kindness I got at your age. Have a good day now.” That is a definite cue for Chase to leave. He nods, the kind that means ‘thank you and goodbye’, and heads the fuck out of there to the meeting point. Once he is out of camera view in the alley, he fist pumps the hand not clutching the guitar and music. His excitement even outweighs the dubious looks on Alex and Nico’s faces when all he brings back to the site are a couple of gas station groceries, a few new CDs and a new jacket, and the guitar. Nico asks him if he’s going full hemp-hippie on them now, if he’s gonna play in the streets for money. It fazes him 0%.  


He is so, so validated the next day when he actually gives the guitar to Gert. He had smuggled it in the night before while she was upstairs, testing her and Lace’s mind-reading limits. It was mid-afternoon the next day before they are alone together. He finds Gert reading in the living room when he goes to check on the guitar’s hiding place. She is neck-deep in an old pulp novel from one of the thrift stores, bound by tape. She looks calm, but her free hand tap tap taps on the sofa arm she leans against. She is tucked into herself as she reads, looking to the world like a woman enthralled, but to Chase like a girl splitting her time between reading and counting mold patches on walls. He clears his throat. She looks up. Lights, camera, action, Stein.  


“Hey, I sort of, um, have a surprise for you.” That sounded ominous and shitty, dammit.  


“Oh?” She looks really surprised and more than a little skeptical. Chase gulps.  


“Yeah, just stay right there. And close your eyes.” She closes them with reluctance, and Chase scurries over to the adjoining closet. He pulls out the guitar. Karolina let him use some of the ribbon she’s been putting in her hair to tie a shitty bow in the case. He takes that, and the music, and carries it over to the coffee table in front of Gert. He situates them, takes a step back, nods.  


“Alright, open.” Gert looks up at him, clearly having been expecting him to be holding something. It takes her a second to look down at the table, but when she does, a hand flies up to her mouth. Her face is pink. Chase thinks it is cute cute cute. “I know we can’t get you medicine or anything else actually helpful but I thought maybe this would be something you could do with your hands, Molly mentioned you had gotten really into music, the guy actually helped me find a song by a person you mentioned, Mitski? It has interesting lyrics.” He could say more but Gert gets up, silently, and hugs him tight. It is the first normal moment between the two of them since before the Hostel, maybe since The Night. Chase holds her back, resisting the urge to scoop her up, to profess undying love. She starts to cry, and he hugs tighter. They start to sway, and it occurs to Chase they probably look like a really lame slow dance right now. She is warm and smells good and hugs so well, like the tighter he hangs on the more every tense thing in his body will relax. It’s like a ball of light appears in his chest and expands expands expands until he could float away. Gert squeezes, and pulls away.  


“What’s the Mitski song?” Her voice is sticky with tears and her face is wet. He pulls the handkerchief he has taken to carrying out of his pocket, hands it to her.  


“It’s called A Burning Hill? The guy told me it was slow, I don’t have much experience with music, sorry if it’s not one you like or you already know.” Gert is smiling at him, bright and wide, the beginnings of a laugh being pulled from her throat. The amount of light she gives off is almost off-puttingly beautiful. Like something magical.  


“Chase, I don’t know how you did that but I was literally just trying to get my hands on decent sheet music for this a few days before all this went down. It's perfect. It’s all perfect. Thank you.” She sounds floored in a good way, like Chase just did something really, genuinely right. And Chase can feel himself puff up, glow a little in pride, especially when she disregards the book entirely to fiddle with the guitar instead, flipping through the learning book and the other sheet music. Chase shoves his hands in his pockets and stabs himself in the finger with something.  


“Ow, fuck!” Chase sucks his thumb into his mouth. Fuck, that hurt.  


Gert looks up, startled. “You alright?”  


“Yeah, yeah, I’m all good.” He takes the pick out of his pocket. “Guess I just needed a violent reminder of the last part of your gift.” There is the face again, the conversation with herself face, as she takes the pick and holds it gently, twirling it between her fingers. Her face is more open than it’s been in all their time on the run. Chase turns to go, has one last thought. “You deserve this, Gert. You deserve to feel comfortable and safe. We’ll get out of here, I promise. We’ll make it out alright.”  


He sits outside the door after he leaves, and listens to her practice. It turns out A Burning Hill is a soulful, sad song about being calm in the face of confusion and all of the emotions you can’t hold. Huh, he thinks, and falls asleep.  


  
  
  


Gert has been practicing for an hour, maybe more, when she hears snoring in the hallway. Her first instinct is Lace, like maybe she came back when Gert was distracted and couldn’t get the door open, but then this is human. Not Molly, too deep to be Molly, so? She gets up and looks out the door. Oh. Chase. Who she thought had left when he gave her that pick, beautiful and somehow the correct thickness for what she wanted. She suspected that was by chance, but it made her stomach warm anyway. Curled around himself like a baby on the gross-ass floor of this hallway. She wonders how long he was awake and sitting out here, listening to her fuck up on the guitar. She wonders how long it’s been since he slept well. She gets a blanket and pillow from the couch and covers him. She tries to get back into a rhythm in the living room but can’t focus with him out there, feet away, dumb face so calm and sweet. She carries the guitar out to the hallway and sits on the gross-ass floor across from him and plays all of the children’s tunes she knows. When he starts to stir, she walks away, as softly as possible. Something in her aches, hard, and she wonders when the next supply run is.  


  
  


As it turns out, the next supply run wasn’t for 6 days. Gert was pilfering paper left and right by day 3. She had a to-do and we-need list notebook that she was rather loathe to use for anything else, but she had been tearing out pages of the back to scribble lyric ideas and chords. She is almost in a frenzy the fourth night, needs sheet music like she needs to breathe, needs to tell someone all of this, even if it’s just the page, just herself. She hasn’t written songs in years, but this all feels bigger than her the way it used to, when they were young and she couldn’t decided if having butterflies for your friend is normal. Her emotions were big and tangled, with no beginning or end. Like, maybe it was just because Chase was so nice? And not because he held her hand when he got scared during Jurassic Park and part of her thought about how nice it would be to kiss him. Gert isn’t good at romance. She is good at music though. For a long time, playing music was a good coping mechanism for her anxiety. It had faded when things had been really good with all of them, the year or so before Amy died. It came back with a vengeance when Alex didn’t show up to the funeral, and by the time she and Karolina stopped trying to force hangouts and care packages for Nico, Gert was really good at the piano.  


She’s also been making a list of songs she can find on Alex’s untraceable computer, what she can print at the library 4 blocks from the meeting point, and what she might have to spend money on. She’s been subtly collecting music she thinks everyone might like for a few days. Logistics swirl around in her head, trying not to pinpoint the reasoning behind why she needs a new notebook, different sheet music. The pile of love songs, duplicated from her Spotify playlist “C :’(”. She can’t look too closely at what she’s going to do or she’ll chicken out. Instead, she thinks about the CDs from the store she found last year, the odds they have Bury Me At Makeout Creek. Maybe she should add that Neko Case album. She considers the likelihood of getting her hands on any old Mountain Goats, wonders if Chase prefers far off, early sounds of All Hail West Texas or if she should prioritize The Sunset Tree or Tallahassee. She should get Molly Carly Rae Jepsen. She wonders if Alex would appreciate more Weezer, or that Eagles album more. Karo might appreciate some Barry Manilow or Frank Sinatra. She wishes the Prettiots were a LA based band and not New York so she could show Nico 18-Wheeler and Suicide Hotline. She wants to play Elliot Stabler for Chase. Like. Ironically. She wonders briefly about that Deathless Gods With Human Bods Soundcloud link she had saved on her old computer, wishes she could burn CDs too. Maddie Ross, a Nico favorite, really old Panic! because this house makes her nostalgic, Phoebe Bridgers for the heartache. It’s an endless list.  


She ends up hum-singing Elliot Stabler and wandering the halls. It’s probably past 1 in the morning now, if how long Lace has been gone is any indication. “Boy, you’re my savior, you’re my Elliot Stabler. You look so good gathering evidence the crimes that brought you here now seem so irrelevant.” Humming the verse, she passes an ajar door. Don’t ask her why this is different, but she knows that it was left open by a person. It’s at like, a wrong angle. Her eyes catch it as she passes and there is Chase, laying facedown on a gross bed, starfishing at an odd angle with one foot hanging off the end. He’s probably not asleep, his back still seems tense for a person relaxed. His breathing isn’t right either, the slow crawl she had seen in the hallway gone, replaced with the uneven breath of a man self-suffocating but too stubborn to move.  


“Chase? Are you alright?” The words slide out of her before she even decides to speak. He jerks his head off the bed and scrambles to turn and face her without getting up fully. He twists at an awkward angle, wrinkling the blankets and nearly falling. He is propped up on his arms, making them bulge. Gert is Fine. His face is red from being shoved in the cushioning, and maybe from being caught in a hidey-hole.  


“Jesus! Yeah sorry I’m alright just taking a second!” He won’t get off the bed and Gert is not planning on thinking about why he is still laying on his stomach instead of standing. Well, not right now. Later, maybe, in the comfort of her own bed. She’s trying to look at him while not looking like she’s looking at him right now. Strong arms, soft hair, kind eyes. There’s just something about Chase she never has been able to shake, since they were middle school. He sticks to her brain like glitter glue, there even when you think he’s gone. He starts to babble. “I mean, you know, for a big house it can feel a little crowded downstairs, so I came up here to clear my head. Normally I’d go outside but it’s dark and I know Lace wouldn’t mistake me for prey, but something else out there might and that’s not really a risk I’m willing to take. I may be strong but I don’t think I could take a mountain lion.” Chase is breathing hard, and Gert feels bad. She didn’t mean to startle or accuse him, obviously they were all allowed to have downtime. She should lighten the mood.  


“Alright, Bear Grylls, just wanted to make sure we hadn’t lost you to a murderous mattress. Who would help Alex with the maintenance then?”  


“Oh, is that all I’m good for then? Manual labor? I never thought you, Gertrude Yorkes, would commit such an atrocious crime of gender stereotyping, I am a sensitive soul! In all my years, I never!” Chase is smirking that little smirk he didn’t develop until he started doing sports, eyebrows creased and laughing with his eyes. Its, flirty? Maybe? Gert thinks about Nico, and the kernel of hope she planted in Gert. But no. Shouldn’t take a chance that big in a space this small. Plus, how much did Gert even know about this Chase? Two years is so long, and knowing that they are physically compatible (surprisingly (really really) good at sex for (probably??) two virgins) didn’t mean he hadn’t changed. What if she hates him? What if he hates her? There was a time they were near-perfect, could read each others faces and minds. Once, she got a whole day of information out of how tightly he squeezed her hand. But now? They are drifting ships of trauma, barely recognizable. She wants to recognize him so badly, she doesn’t think she could open up and find a stranger.  


“Call me Gertrude again and we’ll find out how useless you are against a dinosaur and a super-strong 14 year old.” Deflect, smooth, Yorkes.  


“Molly would never hurt me! We watched The ‘Burbs last night! We have a ‘Burbs bond!” He is still grinning, this feels good. She should go, before she says something stupid and ruins the whole moment.  


“Betrayed by my own sister, I cannot believe. I’m gonna continue my walk, yell if the mattress comes to life. We need you around, dude. For a lot.”  


Chase sighs a little. “Thanks, Gert. If you ever need to stop walking, my many bedrooms are always open. For talking. Obviously. Um.” Gert chuckles, thinking of their conversation in the school hallway, a lifetime ago. They had a knack for innuendo, apparently. They might never have to worry about shitty teachers and bad grades again. Which would be comforting if it wasn’t because they might be murdered before they could vote.  


“Yeah, obviously. Thanks, Chase.” She turns to leave, heart in her throat for no reason. She gets around the end of the hall corner before she sits down to breathe, winded for no reason.  


  
  
  


Chase watches Gert go, then waits several seconds until he thinks she’s really gone, before flipping on his back so his head lolls off the bed and giggling a little. The blood pooling in his skull right now is nothing compared to the headrush he just got from talking to Gert. He is fist pumping in his heart. He’s also completely lost the awkward boner, which was the point of getting away from everyone, so. Double success! A night for the books.  


He hopes she takes him up on his offer. He wants to know Gert again, to really understand her the way he used to. There was a time he could have anticipated her every move, from waking up to going to sleep. It wasn’t like, magic or anything but it was totally magic. Once, Chase brought cough drops to 5th period bc Gert had sniffled more than twice at lunch, and she had gotten the full flu a day later. Now, she reaches for the wrong things. Different cereal, other candy, her hairbrush is a different shape even though he saw the one she used to use in the drugstore. She hugs Molly differently, with more precision. Gert used to be so liberal with her love, handed it over to any group member whenever they needed a little. She was an overflowing pot but they hurt her. He hurt her, and now she won’t trail her fingers over his arms during the movie nights, doesn’t drape herself over Karolina like a ragdoll in the mornings, won’t rub Alex’s eyebrows when he’s stressed and they’re furrowed. He keeps waiting for it, for her and Nico to be dancing in the living room, for her to walk up behind him and wrap her arms around his waist and hook her chin over his shoulder and try and get a peek at his phone.  


He dreams about it sometimes, the ghost of Gert’s warm hands on him. Rubbing his shoulders, patting his head, poking his feet when he props them in her lap on the couch. Sometimes, of course, the dream touch is iron-hot of her hands in his hair, on his bare chest, the it-aches-but-its-good memory of kissing her senseless. But not all the time. Not even most of the time.  


That’s what he meant with Nico. She’s not a hookup. He’s never even truly had a hookup. He could’ve, but he always stopped short of any clothes removal, like there was a wall up past that. He’s glad now, that he did- and he also knows why. He’s always been waiting for Gert. There is a chamber in his heart dedicated to the way Gert looks at him when he’s right about something. Parts of him are built because of and for her. Time away only proved that, the way he was still drawn to 60 Minutes, the Twitter he had where he followed politicians and smart comedians and people who weren’t Brandon. He had been missing this stimulation for so long that he forgot the itch under his skin to be challenged, to learn. There is give and take in this house he hasn’t had in so long. Nico, scoffing when he uses a sports metaphor to explain how the fistigons are shooting even though they all remember her weird basketball phase. He heard Alex reciting Bo Burnham jokes to himself last night while tinkering, and remembers the three weeks he watched nothing but what. and refused to shut up about how Bo was the comedian of a generation. A million inside jokes and desperate callbacks are on the tip of Chase’s tongue, but he doesn’t think he’s there yet. He was second to leave the first time, and there haven’t been enough days to know he has convinced them he wasn’t ready to leave now. He shouldn’t have smashed the laptop, even if it wouldn’t have helped. Maybe they should have family dinner.  


Dinner, cooking, does Chase know how to cook, has Chase seen the kitchen. Chase was standing in the kitchen trying to find cereal two days ago, and Gert in sleepwear walked in, and Gert’s sleepwear is old boxers (Scooby Doo) and a big sweater because (?????) God hates him maybe. It wasn’t like, a sexy thing, her hair was matted in the back and she had on weed socks Alex had bought and bunny slippers Molly must have left in her room but she did look cozy and warm and Chase wanted to burrow into the hot curl of his gut when he looked at her. She had eaten toast silently across the counter from him and smiled softly when he nodded in acknowledgement. Anyway. Chase thinks they should have family dinner. He calls a family meeting about it.  


Mostly what ‘family meetings’ (or ‘team meetings’ if you’re Alex and Nico and haven’t accepted that calling them ‘family meetings’ is cute and heartwarming) mean is that they all gather in the living room and work out plans, outline ‘power practices’ and get house updates. Everyone's a little confused that Chase is calling one, as a dude who seemed content to go with the schedule. Nico cocked an eyebrow so questioning Chase almost cancelled the whole thing, but Karolina stood behind her with an encouraging smile. Chase gathered everyone in the great front area, where they have now dragged couches and chairs in addition to his nest. He lets everyone get settled, and takes a deep breath.  


“I want to enforce family dinnertime.” Oh-kay, strong start Stein. “I mean, it’s time to address the elephant in the room. We were friends, then we weren’t, and now we’re all like, begrudging, confusing roommates? And it’s been hard, to walk on eggshells with you guys. This is the closest group I ever had to a support system, to a real, caring family. I miss you guys. I missed you guys. Everything was shitty and now everything is so much worse but we got each other back, right? And I think that means something. I want to clear the air, try and apologize for all the shit I did when I was trying to martyr myself.”  


There is a long pause. Shit. Chase has fucked up, somehow, irreparably, and he’ll have to just leave the Hostel and get eaten by a bear, he guesses. Nico looks at him, hard and hard to read. Alex takes a breath.  


“Look, Chase, I agree. I think we at least have to get along, and I missed you guys too. We’ve all been fuckups, none of us dealt with grief or high school well, but I know that I would have come back at the first sign of an opening. I regretted the moment I left, I was just so out of my depth. We all were.” This is good, this is going well, Chase is fine and definitely not about to be blindsided by the angriest witch on the West Coast.  


“Well, I’m so glad the two of you are finally ready to own up to ditching your friends in a crisis! Thank you, Chase, once again, for working out a way to apologize without taking any blame. I’m really impressed that you can still do that this well, after all these years! And Alex, you saint, I’m so glad your hindsight about my sister’s murder is 20-20! Really grateful you waited until after all the shit hit the fan to bring up that great detail that might have saved me years of mourning and guilt! You know, you two really take the fucking cake-”  


“Nico, cut it out.” Gert’s voice is hurt and hard, like when she used to confront him at school. Chase just set off a bomb.  


“Oh, Gertrude, I’m just getting started. Want to talk about why you left? The group just wasn’t interesting to you after precious Chasey left, is that it? Or were you trying to distract from your own hurt by fixing the rest of the world? Gert Yorkes, preach all she wants but can’t face her own shit! Did it ever cross your mind that you took Molly when you went? That she might have wanted to stay? That I would have given anything to have a sister again when you were just dismissing yours and making executive choices for a middle schooler?” Nico is breathing hard. Karolina puts a hand on her shoulder, and Nico turns to her, eyes wet. “And you- you- looked like you were over it, like you had forgotten about her, and us, and you were so peppy and happy just ignoring every doubt you ever told us, every time you said something your mother wouldn’t approve of-” She loses steam. She turns to the group at large, pleading now, close to tears. “You all just left, Amy was gone and then Alex, and you just left me to rot in it, in that house without her, alone with Tina, and Dad checked out too and I had nobody! I was alone!” Nico collapses back on the couch, crying and curls her legs up into her body, a shaking lump of black fabric.  


Something in that hits Chase like a bullet to the sternum and he crumples, nearly passes out and sits down rapidly on the floor. Alone, they were all so alone, his head is spinning. He stands, and walks to where Nico is seated. He crouches and reaches for her knee. He tries to talk in the soothing way his mother used to, right after Dad had left in a fit of anger. “Nico, please, look at me. Nico. I am so sorry. You should never have had to hold all that yourself, we should have been there. I should have been there. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there.” Nico’s crying harder now, reaching out a small, hot hand and clutching his, so hard it hurts. She unfurls and looks at him, heavy makeup smeared beyond repair.  


“Chase, it's okay. Well, no it’s not, but, we all pretty obviously had shit going on. I am so sorry too, dude, that none of us saw it, that asshole, Karo told me about the glass and the gun, I swear to God if I see that man I’ll blast him into outer space, you were never anything but kind before Ames died. I can’t imagine, you didn’t deserve that. You were such a good friend Chase, you’re a good person.” Chase laughs, wetly, bitterly.  


“Look, it’s okay. All that stuff with my dad. It was just a score to settle in his ego, I survived it.” This time, the sharp voice is Molly.  


“You shouldn’t have to survive your goddamn childhood, Chase. I hate him for what he did, for what he was okay with doing to you and to those PRIDE kids. He’s an evil, rotten person and I will super-strength kick him in the nuts.” Molly breathes out heavily into the stunned silence.  


“God,” Gert says after the slight pause that follows Molly’s statement, “we really hit the parent jackpot, huh? Us 6 alone could keep a whole gaggle of therapists in practice forever, not to mention all the kids in New York who keep getting their shit destroyed by aliens.” No one laughs. Gert looks more nervous than before, and seems to decide something. She walks over to where Chase and Nico are still wound together. She half-kneels in front of both of them, so close Chase can smell the synthetic apples of her shampoo. “Nico, I am so sorry. I was afraid of trying to show you my genuine emotion because I was afraid my sadness would push you over the edge. Staying away got easier when you started pushing. It was selfish and bad of me, and wrong of all of us to strip you of a healthy way to grieve. You are one of the strongest people I know, and I hope you will believe me when I tell you I love you.” Nico nods, removing her hand from Chase’s and setting it on Gert’s shoulder. They stare at each other for a second before Chase can see Nico squeeze and release.  


Gert turns to Chase. He is just getting his senses back, so when she puts a hand on his arm and he visibly leans into the touch, his brain only has the courtesy to be embarrassed after a pause too long to be a coincidence. Gert pushes past his obvious blush and retreat. “Chase, I- I really don’t know if I’ll ever be able to tell you what having you in my life has meant to me, but you are a truly, bone-deep good person and the fact you have ever been led to believe otherwise is a crime.” Chase runs hot and cold at the same time, both from the overwhelming emotional moment he just had, and the impact of Gert’s words hitting him. ‘Meaning something to me’ is a far cry from just ‘never thinking you were an idiot’. He’s just kind of staring at Gert, mouth open, before he feels a hand on his shoulder and Karolina has reached for him from where she is now holding Nico. They also nod, a sort of acknowledgement on Chase’s part he still has stuff to apologize to Karo for, all of the ways he was unsubtly trying to cope. She goes back to whispering to Nico. Molly is behind Gert now, hovering like she wants a hug, and Chase opens his arms from the floor. He gathers them all up, Gert and Nico and Molly and Karo, and turns his head awkwardly to Alex, still sitting behind them.  


“Get your ass over here Wilder. This is a Runaways affair.”  


Alex laughs. “I thought we weren’t calling ourselves that.”  


Nico extracts her head from where it is caught in Molly’s hair. “I don’t know man, it’s kind of growing on me. Now get in here, it's getting sweaty and Molly won’t let go until you do.” Alex wedges himself between Chase and Karolina and something settles in Chase’s stomach. It’s not perfect, but it’s better. Like something can make sense again.  


“So, dinners? Yes?”  


Nico, now from somewhere near his shoulder, scoffs into his shirt. “Yeah, Stein. We’ll eat your damn dinner.”  


  
  
  


By the end of the supply run Gert has everything she needs and new magazines for Molly and Karolina, from the free table in the library. Sheet music in print, blank pages and three new normal notebooks for lyrics, a reusable bag bulging with CDs, enough to be overkill, but they didn’t cost Alex’s money. Gert had cash in the car on The Night, which she had been ferreting away after she was sure Alex had food and essentials covered with the mystery cash. She feels like Santa Claus now, with her bag of solace. She finishes the rest of her assigned errands (toiletries and the most recent newspaper) with plenty of time to crack open the new portable CD player and headphones for a test, leaning against a wall in a tucked away alley, half a block from the meeting place.  


She opens Back on Top first, wanting a little for familiarity and a lot for Chase. This was his album, right before the Amy stuff, three months of this wailing on repeat. Even now, the bouncing, lurching voice of Brian Sella felt like the vice-hot embrace of that last heatwave, mid-September and unseasonable. Felt like seeing Chase, single earphone in on the way to practice, the way he stopped for a hug and a mini-catch up session by her locker, and the day he popped the hanging bud into her ear, insisted she ‘had to hear their opening track again, it’s just how we spent our summer!’ The line he so desperately wanted her to hear was ‘women’s rights and male hedonism’ and they had laughed, golden and frozen in that hallway moment. Later, when the rumors started about the rest of them and Chase became untouchable, far away from those weird girls and ‘Alex, that nerdy kid’, Gert had thrown her copy of the CD away. Well, she snapped it in half and threw it in Molly’s garbage so the note- another lyric, in Chase’s messy handwriting- would stop staring her in the face. He had told her the week before he was trying to be more confident— sort of fake it til he made it— but now the lyric he had chosen felt like a slap in the face. ‘Pretty pleased with the person I was pretending to be’ he was, apparently. Pleased enough to ditch all his friends and her- not that she wasn’t also just his friend, but they had been having these moments in the month before everything happened, a push in the right direction, anyway, and he had ruined it.  


It always shocks Gert, this anger she still holds for him. She’s forgiven him, she understands, and still she feels like she could sock him in the jaw. It comes like the anxiety attacks do, a buildup of energy that bursts like a water balloon. She just, feels a lot. Empathy, sympathy, shame, anger, happiness. It's like living at a 14 when everyone else is working on a 10 point scale. And Chase only magnifies the shitty parts of that. Anger, attraction, fondness, all waiting just below the surface for him to take. The song changes. She’s already on HELP. She could fucking use some, Brian.  


The ride home is unusually chatty. She’s with Karolina and Alex, and she thinks that the night before shook them all up a little more than they had let on all day. Alex seems interested in their purchases instead of distracted by his frowning, Karolina is delighted by the poppier albums Gert was bringing home, and showed them the the knitting kit she was going to try. They laughed at nothing in particular. It was nice, almost completely normal, except for the 30 seconds they passed a patrolling cop car and had to hold their breath. In the end, they stumbled into the Hostel loaded down with bags and chuckling at something Karolina had said. Gert turned to the foyer to see Molly, Old Lace, and Chase. Molly was trying — and failing — to ride Old Lace while Chase was seated next to them, reading aloud from what had to be their copy of Jurassic Park. He had just started to sing the theme, loud, off key, when he saw the three of them and seemed to realize what a picture they had painted. When Nico comes downstairs a few minutes later, the six of them are still falling into fits of giggles when they make eye contact. She looks bemused, but not angry. It feels like a tectonic shift.  


It takes Gert two days to learn roughly a half dozen songs, if that gives any insight into what she’s got on her schedule. ‘Learn’ is a loose term, but she can play and sing and not make a total fool of herself. She holes herself up in rooms no one else dares to go in and sits on the floor with sheet music and sings and plays. She takes her little portable CD player and stacks of CDs, too, and lays on the floor with music in her ears when she takes breaks. She emerges only for food, or when her hand bleeds a little and needs bandages. She ignores Molly’s looks of slight judgement about the re-opened calluses littering her hands and her lunch of four blueberry Pop Tarts on day two.  


The thing about music is that panic feels like losing touch with your body. When Gert is in her head, she can’t register the world around her. It’s there, sure. She knows she’s in bed or she’s eating or whatever, but in reality she is living in a handful of gray matter until the wave passes. It’s like the world stands beyond a glass case, and the case is filled with gas that makes your worst fears come true, and a door opens randomly to let the rest of the world in, but only if you can get over your claustrophobia and stop hyperventilating. Having to do something physical can pull Gert out of that better than most things. Cleaning a particularly dirty room in the Hostel, playing guitar, something that forces her to absorb the world around her. So yeah, Molls, she’s in isolation. But she is also the most connected to their situation and ‘awake’ she’s been in days. Plus, she has a teeny tiny little mission.  


She’s going to play songs for Chase, a fact she has to face head-on for this endeavor to be worth it. She says it to herself while she learns. She’s going to play Chase Makin’ Out, A Burning Hill, and Sid, she thinks. A little concert. At least to start. Maybe not Sid, the Sid feelings are old feelings, pre-murderous parents feelings. Not Sid, maybe Being Around? No, same issue. Okay. She’s gonna mock herself forever, but she guesses Sick of Losing Soulmates. She already knows that one, the same way she already knows Makin’ Out, just a thing she learned because she was drawn to it. Some songs do that, pull her in. Like a tide, like someone wove her heartbeat into the background and sent the song out to sea to meet her. It feels a little like that to think about Chase for too long, the slow pull of undeniable rightness. Anyway. It’s just a thank you for the guitar. She’s not expecting anything from this deep cut of emotion she’s prepared to spill on the floor for him. Obviously.  


She needs to go to bed. She brushes her teeth in the bathroom that works 99% of the time, splashes water on her face. Her brain feels tired, but the restless ticking of her nerves told her that was probably an illusion if she didn’t do something else before bed. The watch she had gotten from Walmart said it was nearing 12:30, which wasn’t late enough for her to beat herself up about a lap around the more well-traveled hallways. She walks her route, up the side staircase, hand on the railing like she’s Rose on the Heaven-Titanic. Down the first ornate hallway, with the creepy pictures almost following her. She hurries through this one, can feel Lace tug at their connection from wherever she’s hunting. It’s funny when she does that, a mental pull like Gert should tilt her head to one side. It kind of tickles, and relaxes her instantly. Who can be scared of ghosts when you have a dinosaur on their side? Like, obviously still Gert, but she has them beat on the ‘old and scary’ front every time. It’s comforting. She’s in front of that door before she thinks about it. The one Chase was behind before, with the high pink curtains around the bed and the ornate gold mirror over the fireplace. She doesn’t think he’s in there, it feels still in a way it wouldn’t if there was life.  


She’s still disappointed to push the door open and see no one in there. She lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding and goes to perch on the bed. She sees a flash of how Chase was situated that night, and lays down in the same way he was. It smells different when she shoves her head into the rough area his head would have been. The rest of the room smells like old, decaying wood and mothballs. Right here it smells like something has cleared all of that out and it smells like blankets normally smell, the different musty fabric smell, and barely barely barely like Chase’s hair gel. She might be imagining it. She doesn’t even know if he buys it anymore. It was probably expensive. But right here it smells like blanket and artificial man, so she keeps her head there until her face feels hot and she needs a full breath. She tilts just her head up, and- fuck! She falls off the bed.  


She falls off the bed because Chase is standing in the doorway, in maybe the exact ‘lean against the doorframe hand on hip’ pose she did when she caught him. He’s smiling in a way that feels quiet, private. At least, that’s what she thinks she sees in the 3 seconds before her body catches up with the image and catapults itself onto the floor. Now, kneeling by her head, Chase looks concerned and a little like he’s holding back a laugh. “You alright, flying monkey?” He’s definitely laughing, what a bastard. An endearing, sweet, hot bastard.  


“You sound like my dad, 0/10 on the nickname choice, sir.” She’s laughing too, and hauls herself into a sitting position. They’re facing each other, cross-legged on the floor.  


“Oh god, never call me sir again. I am not anyone’s father, least of all yours.” Chase is blushing a little. Gert files that away.  


“Hey now, if you leave out the murder Dale raised me to be a well-rounded, politically active young woman.”  


“Stacy did that. Dale raised you to like bad movies and have questionable ice cream taste.”  


“Pistachio is not a weird flavor! Just cuz I don’t eat quadruple chocolate fudge heart attack with brownie pieces.” If anyone was in the room, they would be looking back and forth like at a tennis match.  


“Pistachio is a weird flavor when you’re 7 and have never seen a pistachio, which I hadn’t, because my mother had taste buds that worked.”  


“Yeah, broccoli salad 3 nights a week really refined your pallet, huh Stein? Fritos and peanut butter must be more of a delicacy than I thought.”  


“You and your Hot Cheetos can talk to me when I don’t find red dust on all of the blankets by the TV.”  


“Not my fault they’re the only hot thing in the building! Alex doesn’t buy spicy stuff.”  


“Now we know you don’t think that’s true.” Why is he smirking?  


“What?” What did she just do?  


“That the Cheetos are the only hot things here. Categorically untrue, based on actions and empirical evidence. That I gathered. For scientific reasons.” Gert feels hot all over. This is how it happened last time, she ran hot, then cold, then spent like 15 minutes getting very very warm again. Not this time, baby. She can recover from this.  


“Is that what the kids are calling carrying a torch for the weird girl now? Science? I thought they called it things like lame, and unrealistic.” She huffs a laugh. He’s looking at her weird. Like he’s hearing good news.  


“I don’t think ‘is distant sometimes and has a sister that could drop me’ counts as weird girl status, do you?” He’s smiling, this blindingly bright smile that kills her inside. She gets up, abruptly, and sits on the bed. It still feels like there is no space between them, and he won’t stop smiling. It’s like he has blinders on, like all of his attention is focused on her and could burn her up at any moment. Chase’s undivided attention bores holes in her skull. She has to know, suddenly, where they’re standing. Firm ground or on a precipice? Friends or — is there an or?  


“Chase?” Gert took a breath. “Could we drop this for a minute? I wanna really talk to you. Like, not because we’re doing that whole Ron and Hermione flirting act.”  


“Aren’t you the one who told me to read another book when I mentioned Harry Potter at the dinner table? I mean, yes, of course, I digress.” He sits down next to her on the bed, kind of shifted to see her face. They both assume this stance of one leg on bed, one on floor, balanced mirror images. He can tell she’s not settled, god bless him. He opens his big fat mouth again. “Of course I want to real talk with you, seriously. Nothing else I’ve wanted to do since we got here.”  


“That’s my first question then. Why didn’t you? We— we hooked up, we tried to ruin our parents, you told our scary leader friend you really liked me, you bought me a guitar, and then nothing. Radio silence. You’re hanging out with my little sister like its not weird. You’re not even Chase of 2 weeks ago, you’re being Chase of two years ago. It’s like you got body snatched and are ignoring the fact we all might notice.”  


“Okay, not gonna lie, that hurts a little bit. I guess I’m trying to be the guy you wanted to be friends with, not the guy you wanted to call shitty names and tear down in public. I’ve missed you, all of you, but really especially you, Gert. We were so close and then I blinked and you were the Great Wall of China. The last like month of my life has been like waking up and realizing you fell asleep in the bath and you’re cold and miserable even though the bath was supposed to help with that. I’ve been asleep in the bathtub for 2 years. I’m the world’s biggest prune. Sorry, sorry. I just, I treated everyone I ever truly cared about like garbage for who? Brandon and Eiffel? The flimsy security of being popular?” He’s got his eyebrow and forehead wrinkles up to full force now. Thinking face.  


“Chase. What did you do that for? What did you need that we couldn’t give you?”  


“No offense, Gert, but even you weren’t equipped to handle the grief of 5 other kids at 14. Let alone the emotional weight of a kid being abused, who was swiftly losing his support system, his distraction. It’s easy to fake happy when your friends are, when they make you happy. But when sadness and anger are pushing at you from all sides? It makes the darks darker. I needed an out. I wanted the empty place where Amy was gone. I wanted the Nico I recognized back, and when it became clear we weren’t getting that, that this wasn’t an elaborate nightmare, I had to get out. It was wrong and it hurt, but it kept me afloat.”  


Gert’s crying? She’s gaping like a fish out of water. She had been so self-centered, thought she drove him away, of course he was sad about Amy. She had been their rock, more than anyone, the emotional core of what held them together. Chase had seemed so shallow when he left, petty and laughing, always fucking laughing, he haunted her dreams from across the cafeteria. But of course he was laughing. He needed to laugh like she needed to scream. Fuck. She had been so mean to him.  


“And I was so mean to you. Shit. I’m sorry, I just couldn’t— I thought I did something, that I freaked you out. I thought I drove you away, so to cope with it I pretended I didn’t want you back even though I did, so badly, every day. You were the only one who was always there with me, no matter what. You protected me from everything you could, and you were being hurt. I didn’t even try to see it. How could I not see it?” She’s speaking half to herself at this point, and then a warm weight settles on her entire left side. He’s leaned entirely into her, head on her shoulder and hand on the just-barely section of thigh after her knee ends. He feels good here with her, that creeping rightness.  


“It’s okay.” he whispers. “We got here in the end. I forgive you. It’s okay.” Lace chooses this second to perk up and check in, probably because of the crying and elevated heart rate. Gert does her mental equivalent of ‘down, girl’ and chuckles.  


“What’s funny, ‘ertie?” He’s muffled by her sweater now, settled more on her collarbone than her direct shoulder. “‘M trying to have an emotional moment.”  


“Just Lace checking in. She felt worried. It tickles when she’s worried.” She flops back on the bed, wrapping an arm around Chase’s middle and pulling him down with her. It feels good in here, a quiet world of their own. She wants to give him the concert now. She wants to feel connected to him again. “Hey, will you sit tight for a second? I wanna thank you for the guitar but I need props.” Chase beams.  


“Yeah of course, I’ll hang out in here. I think it’s becoming one of my favorite rooms in the house.” Gert squeezes him, tight, before jumping up and hurrying away. Her anxiety grips her in the hallway, but it’s not serious enough to stop her mission. She’s gonna sing songs for Chase Stein. This feels like one of her stress nightmares, like walking into school in your underwear. Deep breaths and low expectations. Really low expectations that do not smell like cologne on her sweater.  


  
  
  


Gert singing is no less mesmerizing than in the car. It’s more, better, because she’s trying now, with the guitar and the softness of the whole scenario. She’s cross-legged on the floor in front of him singing A Burning Hill like she wrote it. Like it belongs to her. She had been so nervous walking in and now confidence rolled off her in waves. God, she was beautiful. She had closed her eyes, which was convenient, because then she couldn’t see that he was staring. He was teary by the end, connected with that idea of being both within and without your body.  


She started the second song, after a pause, and he recognized from somewhere. He couldn’t place where and tried not to dwell on it, because she was in front of him singing a love song like he had ever done anything to deserve her heart. Maybe he had. The way she had reacted to him recently made him feel special. No one had cared if he was around on the team, not outside of practice. He missed parties and ducked out early to drink in silence plenty. But the kids hadn’t let him be alone recently. He woke up to Molly jumping on his bed, he worked all day with Alex, watched movies with Nico and Karolina, and now Gert finds him late at night. They care if he’s around. Gert cares if he’s around.  


And Gert, who cares if he’s around, who he matters to, is singing a love song to him. He hopes to him. The chorus is about making out and making it out alright, and all of the verses are about people who love each other, how they fit together, and how they don’t. He thinks they still fit, him and Gert, maybe not perfectly anymore but better. They could fit. He’s willing to sand down his edges again, if she wants to make them fit together soft, like one of those puzzles you cut yourself out of construction paper. She finishes the song and cracks her eyes open, nervous again. He hopes his smile is telling her all the things his heart feels— love and appreciation and acceptance and awe, a glitter bomb of happiness. She grins up at him, timid in the low light.  


“The last one is, um, ha, it’s kind of a question. If you want to answer it. If you don’t, it’s just a random song I picked for no reason at all.” Chase chuckles at her bashful expression, like she’s the only one here out on a limb. They’re floating on this tree branch together, entirely unable to take back any of what has happened tonight, and yet ready to do exactly that at any second. The final song is as simple as the other two but unlike the others appears to be defined by its simplicity. If he thought the lyrics of that last one were a ton of bricks, there’s something about this one that hits like the pressure of suddenly being deep underwater. He feels seen, complemented, stripped of any last semblance of a defense system.  


The question is pretty clear. But how were they gonna win? Chase doesn’t know, only knows he wants to try. He’ll try anything with Gert. She opens her eyes, when she asks that question the last time. Right on the last ‘I can finally see, you’re as fucked up as me’, which would be funny if Chase wasn’t so dramatically frozen, clinging to her every word. Her last note hangs in the air for seconds that stretch like hours. Chase takes a breath.  


“I don’t know how to phrase this but yes. I want to win, I want to win with you, whatever that entails. It wasn’t ever supposed to be one time, or temporary. I— I think it’s always been you Gert. Since day one.” She breathes a sigh of relief, but the tension in the room isn’t gone. He gets up and sits down next to her on the floor. She leans into him, he wraps his arm around her, and they sit.  


  
  
  


Gert’s never been more conflicted in her life, and she’s spent the last 2 weeks learning that her eco-friendly vegetarian parents are fucking murderers who built her a dinosaur. Her stomach feels like its out at sea in a storm and her heart is beating through her whole body. She feels like she’s on a different plane of existence right now. That had gone well, the best she could have dreamed it going, but where the fuck do they go from here? She’s still without her meds, he’s still obviously not over everything, none of them are. They’re not Nico and Karolina, this isn’t a thing separate from their situation as a whole. Loving Chase will always be intertwined with finding out her parents were evil, that her sister’s parents were murdered, that all of her best friends had left her because an alien murdered a teenage girl. Can she live like that?  


Chase smells like hair gel and ‘male’ deodorant, like the cheap shit detergent they use and Molly’s burnt pizza experiment from last night. He’s wearing plaid pajama pants and a soft, loose shirt that used to advertise an auto shop. His hair has been raked to the side a little, and he’s wearing thick wool socks. She wants to keep him like this, next to her, wishes nothing had ever touched him. She remembers him small, lanky, with that shitty swoosh of bangs that hung lank in his eyes. He had been a clumsy kid, believe it or not. “Do you remember that time that you fell out of the Wilder’s oak tree and onto that big exercise ball and bounced into that kiddie pool?” It had happened in slow motion, like a cartoon.  


“Of course I do, I had a bruise the size of Mr. Wilder’s fist on my ass. What were we, 10 when that happened?” Gert pulls away now, so she can look at him. They were older than 10, she thinks, when she remembers that day. Yeah, they were definitely older.  


“No, we had to be 12, Karolina had that Kool-Aid dip dye hair that summer. The horrible faded pink, remember?” Chase grins at her, and her memory clears. Yeah, 12, the year before he had made first string in that traveling lacrosse team.  


“That hair looked fine, purple people eater. Was that before or after Nico’s prep phase?” Gert laughs. She had forgotten about that.  


“After, because she cut up all of her sweaters right after that phase and Mrs. Minoru banned her from group activities for 2 weeks, but she filmed it. We played it at your birthday party with that sad dog commercial song over it.” Now it’s Chase’s turn to laugh.  


“Yeah yeah yeah, that was the summer before your bat mitzvah. We had to be 12. Also, the song is In The Arms Of An Angel.” He howls it, badly, and clearly while only knowing those words. “Amy thought that was so funny, she used to spring it on me in arguments, do you remember?”  


“Yeah, she would just point at Alex and he would project it on the wall with that stupid phone attachment.” Alex had worn these awful tight black jeans all summer that year, and the projector attachment was far too big for them.  


“The one he couldn’t fit in his pocket! God, they were such an evil mastermind team. Once, I swear to God I thought they were gonna turn Molly into a cyborg. It was before that summer, we were like 10 and Molly would have been 8 or so? And they had Molly duty all day and you were sick so I was looking for something to do and I walked in and they had like, blue prints on the table and Molly asleep on the couch. I ended up taking her for the day.”  


“Thank God you did, or we would have had a pubescent mutant cyborg on our hands.” Gert thinks about Molly, strong and brave and so scared, who has lost more than any of the rest of them combined. God, she’d give anything to get Molly somewhere safe, somewhere where she could grow up healthy.  


“Hey— she’s gonna be okay, Gert. We’ve got her back no matter what. All of us.” And that’s true. No matter the squabbles of the rest of them, everyone drops what they’re doing for Molly. They eat her pizza, have her dance parties, take her grocery requests before anyone else’s. But Gert’s supposed to be her big sister. How could all of this have happened on her watch? How could Gert have seen every injustice and heartache she did and miss the one under their noses?  


“How could they be evil? Your mom used to give me the superhero bandaids when I fell at your house. Mrs. Wilder baked 4 dozen snickerdoodles for Alex’s 4th grade class birthday. Mr. Minoru used to slow dance with the girls on his feet at PRIDE’s holiday parties. I know they say it’s in your backyard, it’s people you know, but, fuck, Chase, they ran a multi million dollar charity! We were their kids!” She doesn’t know who she’s pleading with here, Chase or God or Dale and Stacey Yorkes.  


“Look, Gert, I saw my dad do a lot of shitty things while being declared a philanthropic genius. It’s not about how they looked or acted, even to you. It’s core corruption, I think. I think they were born a little broken. People don’t choose to be susceptible to aliens promising wealth and glory. I think you would have punched Jonah in the face, no matter when in your life he tried to come for you. You’re not your parents. None of us are. I would never treat a living thing the way my dad treated me. But it wasn’t his fault. It was core corruption.” Oh. Chase. God, Chase.  


“Chase. It was his fault. Maybe you’re right, maybe there is some decidedly evil force in some humans but to wake up everyday and decide to terrorize your wife and son? That is a choice he made, independent of you, independent of Janet, just your dad’s own shitty brain. Maybe it’s an illness, sure, but people wake up in much worse states than your dad and don’t hurt anyone. You are a brilliant, kind, compassionate man that we are all lucky to know. You are probably one of the best people I will ever have the pleasure of meeting.” She can’t help what she does next, not when Chase looks exactly like he did when they were 6 and she pulled him out of the pool to ask him to marry her. Sure, Karolina may glow sometimes, but Gert’s pretty convinced that Chase Stein’s smile is pure energy, glowing gold. She kisses him.  


It’s light, nothing like the last time. There’s no rush in their room, no need to do something she’ll regret not doing later. She slips her hand around the back of his neck, and he puts his on her cheek. Points of contact that burn in a good way. It’s the kind of kiss where tongue never enters in but her lips are a little wet anyway, teetering on the edge of a deeper thing. She could stay here forever, in this second where Chase has slipped a hand on her waist and shifted closer, on his knees in front of her, making her lean up into the kiss. She could live here, if Chase wasn’t such a goddamn idiot.  


“Oomi goo!” His lips are still half-smushed against her when he starts this. He manages to extract himself. “7th grade talent show!”  


And Gert, ever polite, ever patient. “What the fuck, dude?”  


“That song, about making out! You sang it at the 7th grade talent show that I was supposed to miss for a traveling game and then you didn’t talk to me for 2 weeks after you saw me in the audience!”  


“I cannot believe you interrupted that to tell me about my most humiliating memory. I repressed that, thank you very much.” Gert had wanted to sing a song for Chase without him knowing, it was such a perfect plan. Then the fucking rain had ruined the away game, and Gert had frozen for a whole 5 seconds after seeing Chase in the crowd. 5. Whole. Seconds. In the Atlas Middle School Auditorium, that was essentially 12 years.  


“I never got that. You did such a good job, you just stayed after the song was over for a little too long. And then you got mad at me about it, like I hadn’t been cheering you on.”  


“Are you still 12? That song was for you, even back then, and I was mortified that the boy I was in love with was hearing me sing a song about my feelings.”  


“This is growth, then! I heard you this time, and you barely paused! Also, I was a boy you were in love with?” God, he’s lucky he’s so cute.  


“I was also in love with the guy who played Spike in Buffy when I was 12. Don’t get too cocky.”  


He grins. “Impossible.” He scoops her up and carries her to the bed. During this time, she did not squeal and anyone who would say otherwise is a traitor to the cause.  


  
  
  


When Chase wakes up, it’s to a mouthful of purple hair and a growling sound. Lace, now snoring in the corner, must have sniffed them out in their sleep. There are also whispers from the hallway, and a suspiciously blonde figure standing outside of the half-open door. He groans. He pokes Gert in the side. She groans.  


“They’re spying on us.”  


Gert shifts in his direction. Her eyes are still closed. “Urghrug?”  


“The lesbians are spying on us.”  


“WE CAN HEAR YOU, DILLWEED.” That’s Nico so he was right and he wins. Ha.  


“You can come in, Hostile Harper. We’re fully clothed and the water is fine.” The lesbians, accompanied by Alex and Molly, enter the room. “I would’ve hung a sock on the door. Roommate etiquette.” He drops his voice to a mutter. “Fuckin amateurs.”  


Gert laughs, shuffling so she is curled into his chest, pulling one of his arms over her like a blanket. “Tell them to get out, I’m still tired and I will make out with you in front of them.”  


A spike of heat shoots from Chase’s head through his stomach to his toes. He shudders, and Gert feels it, so there is no way to play cool about it. She laughs into his chest, hot air reaching through his t-shirt to hit his chest. In the background, Molly scoffs.  


“Don’t be gross, nerds, we were just making sure you were alive. It’s almost noon and no one had seen either one of you all day. You have to eat. Also, Gert, if you make out with your boyfriend in front of me I’ll hide your guitar pick and your 3 favorite books in Old Lace’s stomach. I don’t need to see that.” Gert is wide awake at the threat, and they both sit up in bed.  


“Alright, Molls, Jesus. Going for the jugular here. We’ll be downstairs in a few minutes, we just had a long night.” Karolina makes a disgusted noise a little too loudly. “Don’t even, you keep us all up with the glowstick act and the ‘please, Nico, almost there’ing. You could pick between being loud and being bright sometimes.” Gert is glaring daggers at a bright-red Karolina. Chase is in love.  


“And this is why I wear headphones at night and told you guys we shouldn’t wake Gert. But no it’s all ‘don’t be silly Alex, our lives are different now, we have to inconvenience each other’. You don’t inconvenience tired Gert. Fools.” Alex is muttering like a cartoon villain with his arms crossed.  


“Also, not to ruin our street cred, but we did not hook up in this unsanitized room. Gert just played me songs.” Gert groans, and that was apparently the wrong thing to say, because now Nico and Molly are giggling.  


Alex has not uncrossed his arms. He says, “Never open a sentence that will immediately ruin your street cred with ‘not to ruin our street cred’, loverboy.” He is in rare form today, Chase will give him that. “I am graciously going to remove the rest of our friends from this room, and you are going to finish whatever you need to finish, and then we’re watching 27 Dresses as a group because I need some Katherine Heigel after this fuckin morning. See you in 15.” Alex shepherds the girls out of the room, and Gert, now fully awake, attempts to pull herself into Chase’s lap. Which is, fine. He’s just casually cradling the girl of his dreams, who is probably his girlfriend now, while she sleepily smiles against his neck. Really cool normal day.  


“Baby, c’mon, we gotta get up, I need food before I watch Alex cry over James Marsden being a very scruffy douche.”  


“Calling me baby is not the way to get me out of bed, Stein.” Holy shitbuckets, she is out for blood this morning. But she’s small enough he hauls her into bridal carry and swings his legs over the side of the bed. He only ends up carrying her as far as the door, as she kicks him in the ribs ‘on accident’ and he almost drops her.  


“You know, by carrying me places you’re stripping me of my autonomy and consent to go somewhere with you, which is a dangerous game to play with a girl that has 6 classes of self defense training.” She says all this, but she’s holding his hand so he’s still the real winner here.  


They eat breakfast, and Molly throws cornflakes at Old Lace and Alex tries to cook his Pop Tart on the hot plate and nearly lights a fire and the Nico eats cold french toast with her hands and Karolina produces a banana from thin air and Gert lightly knocks her forehead against his shoulder and gives him a ‘what the fuck do we live with’ look over her muffin. And later, when Alex cries over the 27 Dresses sister confrontation for the 14th time and Chase has to pretend he isn’t, it occurs to him how he finally got what he wanted for this place. He used to come here aching for connection, for someone to talk to about something a little deeper than lacrosse formations. And here are his best friends, in his hideaway. The circumstances are shitty and there’s issues to resolve, sure. But they’re watching movies together. They’re eating meals and laughing. They love each other in ways Chase didn’t think they could anymore. It’s good. It’s really, really good.  


  
  
  


It’s that night, after dinner, when they have settled back in to play 14 rounds of Sorry and tournament fight for Battleship champion when Molly insists Gert sing for them. “Just one song, please?” Not even Gert resists Molly’s puppy dog eyes very well, so she drags out the guitar and plays songs she half-knows but knows they will sing along to. Slightly out of tune Sk8er Boi and horrible acoustic renditions of early Panic! songs until they rolled over with laughter.  


Eventually, she just pulled out the CD player and they sang loud, mock karaoke and danced around and Alex played air guitar any chance he could get and Molly tried to get Nico to tango with her and Karolina and Chase did 3 ABBA duets and then. Someone, in a last ditch attempt as they ran out of CDs, threw on Kimya Dawson. And it was Singing Machine. And it’s not that something in Gert broke so much as something in Gert rediscovered it could feel things. And she sang, in the embarrassing way where she is kind of trying, and Molly is singing too, and the rest of them seem like they’re listening for the first time. And Chase is beaming, and Alex has furrowed his brow and Karolina might be half into this song? And Gert thinks of all of the sad music she sang to Chase, and the specific happiness that had come of it. The new, fragile happiness that lay like a bird’s nest in her gut. And sure, tomorrow they might face their parents in a battle for their lives, and she might never get to vote in a Presidential election and her anxiety would never be gone, but she had this. She had friends and love and hope and a boyfriend and a dinosaur. And the boyfriend slow dances with her and liked her dinosaur and loves her little sister and maybe that producer was right, a little bit. Maybe Kimya Dawson was right. It’s about how truth and love can save the day. The world turns, the song ends, and Gert smiles. They’re gonna be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> music!!  
> ariela singing Makin Out https://soundcloud.com/yellabablue/found-recording-of-7th-grade-me  
> ariela singing (part of) A Burning Hill https://www.instagram.com/p/BcVitVqlbtV/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet  
> playlist for this fic! (songs mentioned and that remind me of it) https://open.spotify.com/user/sdodd08/playlist/3dNO48cClFCUUq2Roqi9Ir?si=x4bPiFWEQrugCRevOQGqLQ  
> 


End file.
